SCI/TECH: NASA Leaders 'Get on board or get out'

This was the reply by NASA officials today, one day after the results from a survey of it's employees was released, indicating that the employess felt unappreciated and are still affraid to speak up when it comes to safety issues.

www.cnn.com...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- NASA's top officials said Tuesday that managers unwilling to embrace culture change and candid talk from their employees will be moved aside in the post-Columbia space agency -- and out of the system.

That's part of being accountable as leaders and that's one of the things that has been missing," said James Jennings, a deputy associate administrator.

Jennings said NASA's leadership will undergo one-on-one intervention by behavioral science experts, with a special focus at the middle-management level "where communication, things just stop."

We have to work with that mid-management level to get them to embrace the changes that we want to make and if at the end of the day, if we can't change the people, then we've got to change the people," he said.


The fact that only 45 percent of NASA's 18,000 employees took part in the voluntary survey earlier this year by Behavioral Science Technology Inc. of Ojai, California, shows that many workers are, indeed, fearful, Jennings said.

Jennings said some employees believed -- wrongly -- that if they filled out the survey and sent it in via the computer, they would be identified. Some asked for a hard copy to mail in so it could not be traced.

Can you believe this, employees who are affraid of raising safetly issues with thier management. Some are even scared to fill out the survey. Now it looks like, if they don't play nice with management, then they'll be replaced.


Associated Links :

The original article about the survey for NASA employees.
www.cnn.com...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Many NASA workers feel unappreciated by the agency and are still afraid to speak up about safety concerns, more than a year after the shuttle Columbia was doomed by those very problems, according to a survey released Monday.
The 145-page report includes an assessment of NASA's culture by a behavioral science company in California, and a three-year plan for change.
"Safety is something to which NASA personnel are strongly committed in concept, but NASA has not yet created a culture that is fully supportive of safety," the report says. "Open communication is not yet the norm, and people do not feel fully comfortable raising safety concerns to management."



[Edited on 14-4-2004 by elevatedone]



[Edited on 4-14-2004 by Valhall]

This is a really sad commentary on the state of NASA. Maybe rthe worst part of it is that we expect, and rightfully so, much more from people with the gifts and talents of the leadership of NASA.

I know a few who work for NASA and they feel like the shuttle program is dead. Many are searching for another job already becuase of the lack of anything thats been going on with the program.

I feel that middle management should be deleted. It just seems to be the root of all the major problems.